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Identifying factors that associate with more cited or higher quality research may be useful to improve science or to support research evaluation. This article reviews evidence for the existence of such factors in article text and metadata. It also reviews studies attempting to estimate article quality or predict long‐term citation counts using statistical regression or machine learning for journal articles or conference papers. Although the primary focus is on document‐level evidence, the related task of estimating the average quality scores of entire departments from bibliometric information is also considered. The review lists a huge range of factors that associate with higher quality or more cited research in some contexts (fields, years, journals) but the strength and direction of association often depends on the set of papers examined, with little systematic pattern and rarely any cause‐and‐effect evidence. The strongest patterns found include the near universal usefulness of journal citation rates, author numbers, reference properties, and international collaboration in predicting (or associating with) higher citation counts, and the greater usefulness of citation‐related information for predicting article quality in the medical, health and physical sciences than in engineering, social sciences, arts, and humanities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Classifying papers according to the fields of knowledge is critical to clearly understand the dynamics of scientific (sub)fields, their leading questions, and trends. Most studies rely on journal categories defined by popular databases such as WoS or Scopus, but some experts find that those categories may not correctly map the existing subfields nor identify the subfield of a specific article. This study addresses the classification problem using data from each paper (Abstract, Title, Keywords, and the KeyWords Plus) and the help of experts to identify the existing subfields and journals exclusive of each subfield. These "exclusive journals" are critical to obtain, through a pattern detection procedure that uses machine learning techniques (from software NVivo), a list of the frequent terms that are specific to each subfield. With that list of terms and with the help of optimization procedures, we can identify to which subfield each paper most likely belongs. This study can contribute to support scientific policy‐makers, funding, and research institutions—via more accurate academic performance evaluations—, to support editors in their tasks to redefine the scopes of journals, and to support popular databases in their processes of refining categories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Coauthorship prediction applies predictive analytics to bibliographic data to predict authors who are highly likely to be coauthors. In this study, we propose an approach for coauthorship prediction based on bibliographic network embedding through a graph‐based bibliographic data model that can be used to model common bibliographic data, including papers, terms, sources, authors, departments, research interests, universities, and countries. A real‐world dataset released by AMiner that includes more than 2 million papers, 8 million citations, and 1.7 million authors were integrated into a large bibliographic network using the proposed bibliographic data model. Translation‐based methods were applied to the entities and relationships to generate their low‐dimensional embeddings while preserving their connectivity information in the original bibliographic network. We applied machine learning algorithms to embeddings that represent the coauthorship relationships of the two authors and achieved high prediction results. The reference model, which is the combination of a network embedding size of 100, the most basic translation‐based method, and a gradient boosting method achieved an F1 score of 0.9 and even higher scores are obtainable with different embedding sizes and more advanced embedding methods. Thus, the strengths of the proposed approach lie in its customizable components under a unified framework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ACL Anthology is a large collection of research papers in computational linguistics. Citation data were obtained using text extraction from a collection of PDF files with significant manual postprocessing performed to clean up the results. Manual annotation of the references was then performed to complete the citation network. We analyzed the networks of paper citations, author citations, and author collaborations in an attempt to identify the most central papers and authors. The analysis includes general network statistics, Page Rank, metrics across publication years and venues, the impact factor and h-index, as well as other measures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Normalization of citation scores using reference sets based on Web of Science subject categories ( WCs) has become an established ('best') practice in evaluative bibliometrics. For example, the Times Higher Education World University Rankings are, among other things, based on this operationalization. However, WCs were developed decades ago for the purpose of information retrieval and evolved incrementally with the database; the classification is machine-based and partially manually corrected. Using the WC 'information science & library science' and the WCs attributed to journals in the field of 'science and technology studies,' we show that WCs do not provide sufficient analytical clarity to carry bibliometric normalization in evaluation practices because of 'indexer effects.' Can the compliance with 'best practices' be replaced with an ambition to develop 'best possible practices'? New research questions can then be envisaged. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Academic searching is integral to research activities: (1) searching to retrieve specific information, (2) to expand our knowledge iteratively, (3) and to collate a representative and unbiased selection of the literature. Rigorous searching methods are vital for reliable, repeatable and unbiased searches needed for these second and third forms of searches (exploratory and systematic searching, respectively) that form a core part of evidence syntheses. Despite the broad awareness of the importance of transparency in reporting search activities in evidence syntheses, the importance of searching has been highlighted only recently and has been the explicit focus of reporting guidance (PRISMA‐S). Ensuring bibliographic searches are reported in a way that is transparent enough to allow for full repeatability or evaluation is challenging for a number of reasons. Here, we detail these reasons and provide for the first time a standardised data structure for transparent and comprehensive reporting of search histories. This data structure was produced by a group of international experts in informatics and library sciences. We explain how the data structure was produced and describe its components in detail. We also demonstrate its practical applicability in tools designed to support literature review authors and explain how it can help to improve interoperability across tools used to manage literature reviews. We call on the research community and developers of reference and review management tools to embrace the data structure to facilitate adequate reporting of academic searching in an effort to raise the standard of evidence syntheses globally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since information science concerns the transmission of records, it concerns context. The transmission of documents ensures their arrival in new contexts. Documents and their copies are spread across times and places. The amount of labor required to discover and retrieve relevant documents is also formulated by context. Thus, any serious consideration of communication and of information technologies quickly leads to a concern with context, relevance, and labor. Information scientists have developed many theories of context, relevance, and labor but not a framework for organizing them and describing their relationship with one another. We propose the words context and relevance can be used to articulate a useful framework for considering the diversity of approaches to context and relevance in information science, as well as their relations with each other and with labor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In information science, writing, printing, telecommunication, and digital computing have been central concerns because of their ability to distribute information. Overlooked is the obvious fact that these technologies fashion copies, and the theorizing of copies has been neglected. We may think a copy is the same as what it copies, but no two objects can really be the same. "The same" means similar enough as an acceptable substitute for some purpose. The differences between usefully similar things are also often important, in forensic analysis, for example, or inferential processes. Status as a copy is only one form of relationship between objects, but copies are so integral to information science that they demand a theory. Indeed, theorizing copies provides a basis for a more complete and unified view of information science. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aimed to gather the opinions of editors of Library and Information Science journals indexed in Scopus and the Web of Knowledge regarding the current situation and their forecasts on open access, peer review procedures, functionalities, and specialization. The response rate was 23%, and some noteworthy conclusions can be drawn according to editors' opinions: Within 5-10 years, the main business model for journal publishing will be open access. Institutional support is the preferred source of financing. The review process requires less than 2 months, and the main problems are low quality of texts and finding reviewers. Functionalities such as mobile versions of the journals, social media, data policy, and altmetrics have yet to be exploited; interdisciplinarity will increase the presence of these functionalities in journals, especially through the influence of the related areas of Communication, Management, and Computer Science. Finally, the area that will see the most changes is the management of research data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]